Lee Su-Feh and Chung Jung-Ah: pitching a conceptual tent

Battery Opera's Lee Su-Feh and Chung Jung-Ah

As part of the 2011 Vancouver International Dance Festival, Battery Opera offered a duet simply titled "Lee Su-Feh and Chung Jung-Ah," which is inspired by  "the encounter by two women [...] with hyphens in their names." I entered into the evening thinking  "this is a pretty abstract point of entry into a non-verbal work of art  -- practically speaking, what does this mean?"

Thursday's performance at the Roundhouse didn't answer this question in any obvious fashion, but an allusive answer is implied in the way that the piece foregrounds the gaze of the dancer.  At different points in the evening Su-Feh and Chung Jung-Ah say to each other "I will dance for you," which they each do, while the other observes intently.  This declaration sets up an interesting dynamic, because no longer is the audience simply watching the dancers (subject >object) -- now the audience is watching the dancers watch each other, and our attention hovers between them -- we wait not only for the moving dancer to display herself, but for the reaction (the affirmation, judgement, or collaboration) of the other dancer.  If you come to the piece with any familiarity with identity politics (who has the power to look at who, socially and culturally?) this moment has all kinds of implications -- cultural, racial, gender-related, etc.

 

But thoughtful concepts does not a dance piece make, and so I was pleased that "Lee Su-Feh and Chung Jung-Ah," was grounded in physicality.  With its slow pacing, intense concentration, and understated theatrics, this piece eschews technical flash (there is minimal lighting an no music) and emphasizes the work of the body. Concepts are embedded in the work, but they are like the poles holding up a tent: the minimum structure needed to give shape to the textured fabric of the dance.

 

The texture of the work self is both fascinating and mystifying.  What I most enjoyed was the impression of physical competence that I perceived in Su-Feh and Chung Jung-Ah's movements.  In its first half, the they moved with agonizing slowness and placed an emphasis on breath, muscles of the torso, and joint rotations -- in other words the dancers (dressed like refugees from a 1960s mod/rocker mash-up in fur coats, short animal-printed skirts, pale wigs and sunglasses) posed like mannequins for the first 15 minutes of the show.  I found these movements difficult to parse -- they seemed to signify resistance and constraint -- but their refinement and precision were evident.  I enjoyed seeing how, for example, a movement of Su-Feh's wrist originated first in movement in her hips and shoulders and made the muscles of her forearm evident.  Obviously these are experienced dancers and their bodies are their instruments, but it's still a pleasure to feel the power of this most basic element of dance.

When Su-Feh danced for Jung-Ah, she reprized the painful slowness of the opening.  When she did allow her Marylin-Monroe-bewigged stage persona to relax into the dance, it was into a kind of dense poetics of movement.  She shook her hips and tossed her head in mimicry of funk, but it seemed more a sketch this kind of dance than entering into it whole-heartedly.  Yet this detachment was actually a strength, showing again an allusive power that a layered understanding of dance can give. In comparison to these internalized and understated movements, Jung-Ah's dance was explosive and sensuous.  She described deep lunges, allowed energy to cycle up her entire body, and stood raised on one foot like a bird poised to fly. As the dancers moved through stages of the work, they slowly divested themselves of costuming, until they stood before the audience not as characters but as dancers.  This shedding of layers was another graceful reference to the question of essence and identity -- are we seeing the "real" Su-Feh and Chung Jung-Ah here, or is the serious-minded performer simply one more role that each woman knows how to play? To me this stripping away of layers seemed like a gesture towards authenticity, but I  think that the moment is open to interpretation.

 

In the end, "Lee Su-Feh and Chung Jung-Ah" most clearly expressed the idea of dancer looking at dancer, and it was as its promotional literature states, about "seeing and being seen by one another." Questions of identity were not an overarching theme so much as a springboard into action for the dancers. The concept brings more particular questions about hyphenated experience to my mind -- divorce and remarriage, adoption of two parent surnames, racial or cultural complexities -- but while these are perhaps implicit in the work, they are tangential to the performance itself.

 

Although I deeply appreciated the minimalism and rigour of this work, I was left feeling that sometimes the dialogue between the dancers was a bit opaque  --  each is sensitive to the other's movements, but  it's not always clear why they are in dialogue or what about. To my mind it's a case of understatement actually hiding the significance of the ideas woven into the piece, and perhaps this is the place where a touch more technical flash could be useful -- so much can be implied symbolically with lighting, for instance.

 

The piece does make economical but effective use of what resources are available in the Exhibition Hall. I was pleased by the work's end -- Su-Feh calls the lights from the stage, saying "we are nearly done." Yet she and Jung-Ah continue carving the air with their limbs as they fade into darkness, leaving me with the impression that nothing here is really finished, and that the compulsion to move will carry the dancers long into the night, past any arbitrary signal of closure.

 

Battery Opera's "Lee Su-Feh and Chung Jung-Ah" is part of the 2011 Vancouver International Dance Festival.  More information about participating companies and upcoming performances can be found here.

By Kirstie McCallum